The Markets
Sometimes a loss feels like a win.
Several economic indicators released last week suggest the economy is in a funk. Of course, you probably don’t need us to tell you that, but now we have a few more data points to fill in the picture.
• The Commerce Department said personal spending was flat in February. That [...]

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The Long Arm of the Fed
The financial system is looking to get a facelift. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson today wants to broadly expand the Federal Reserve’s powers. Such a broad expansion would be the largest since the Great Depression.
In the great (read, not great) economic times we’re experiencing, it’s understandable. Not that we, the general [...]

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Credit Cards and your Credit Score
Everyone knows (or I hope everyone knows) that your credit cards affect your credit score, that magic FICO (Fair Issac) number that companies use to determine the interest rate you’ll pay for credit. But there are a lot of myths and misconceptions out there as to how, exactly, your credit [...]

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The Feds have Proposed…an Overhaul of the Mortgage Process
I’m not going to pretend that the mortgage process is easy, simple, a no-brainer. It’s not. And clearly, after watching the subprime mortgage market take the dive it has, you can’t argue that an overhaul is not long overdue. Everyone is getting hurt, if they aren’t buried [...]

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I Got Robbed!
Well, not really robbed, but rather burglarized with me in the beach rental. Yep, it happened, and I’m not proud of it–but, alas, I am only human.
Just got back from Hawaii, where I had five days of rain, sun, whale watching, eggs, Spam, and theft. While I stayed in the less-than-touristy city of [...]

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The Markets
They say truth is stranger than fiction, and last week’s mind-boggling activity in the financial markets underscored that point.
Investors awoke to the news last Monday morning that investment bank Bear Stearns, which just a few days earlier had been trading for more than $60 per share, was being sold to JP Morgan Chase in [...]

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Hard Times. Got an Emergency Fund?
If you’ve ever been unemployed, you know how important it is to have an emergency fund. Depending on what you make as well as how much you spend each month, an emergency fund is crucial to keeping you going during those months where the money you’re used to isn’t coming [...]

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The Wall Street roller coaster continues
On Monday, we heard the sad news about the fall from grace of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. That kept many Wall Streeters (and much of the country) riveted until his resignation announcement on Wednesday, March 12th. Sandwiched in there on Tuesday, the Federal Reserve pleased investors with an [...]

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Don’t Get Audited. Some Tips to Follow
No one likes getting audited by the IRS, and with the deadline for filing your taxes around the corner, it’s time to start thinking like the IRS. And while the IRS is auditing more and more people every year, you’ll want to be one of the peope they don’t [...]

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Early Repayment – The Good and The Bad

Having just paid off my last credit card, I know what it’s like to get that monkey gorilla off my back. The sky is bluer, the birds sing louder, and the air I’m breathing is fresher. Paying off the credit cards meant budgeting them in—and for me that [...]

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